Last Daughter, Last Son
by Lara-Van
Summary: Superman and Supergirl, from beginning. A new reimagining, with new takes on all your favorite characters. Features the rise and fall of the Justice League. Will eventually reveal Kal's final fate, and Kara's destiny.
1. Krypton's Doom

**A Note From Lara: Okay, okay, I promised myself that I WOULDN'T start any new fics until I got all my old ones wrapped up but... Well, the idea for this fic has been bouncing around inside my brain ever since I really got into comics (especially since I started reading Superman archives, the ORIGINAL Superman stories from the 30's). I just see so many disparate elements of the Superman mythos running around, not being tied together in any way, even after Infinite Crisis (which, as you all know, was supposed to tie up all those loose ends), and I wanted to bring together the best of the best of Superman. Actually, a lot of it is trying to forget "Lois Lane: Superman's Girlfriend" ever happened. ;)**

**This is just going to be a long (and I mean LONG) background project I'll be working on behind my other fics. Updates will probably be few and far between, but this is a very long-term project that will take me months- maybe even years- to complete. So... I guess what I'm saying is, bear with me, and I'll do my best to make it worth it.**

**This fic will be based largely on the John Byrne revamp (THANK YOU JOHN, YOU REALLY SCORED ON YOUR DEFINITION OF CLARK KENT!! THE COMIC WORLD OWES YOU _SO MUCH_!!)** **and elements brought in from other sources, including some of the events of the recent Brainiac arc in Action Comics. And so, without further ado (and wow was there a lot of it before!)...**

--

Kara Zor-El gazed through the telescope her father had built for her, staring out across the universe, a look of wonder in her deep blue eyes. She was fifteen years old, and cared little for the worldly cares of Krypton, the way her father did. Kara wanted to be an astronaut. No matter that the Council had forbade space travel long before she was born, she had sworn to herself when she was very young that one day she would break free from the restrictive bounds of her planet and explore what was out there. She wanted to take off and soar across the galaxies.

"Oh _Kara_," murmured her best friend Thara Ak-Var. "Have you even been listening to me?"

"Hm?" Kara asked absentmindedly, peering at the moons of Bgzlt.

"Kara!" Thara exclaimed. Thara was bright and pretty (though no match in either department for Kara), and like most Kryptonians, had no dreams beyond the atmosphere, and few within it. "Will you quit staring through that telescope? What boy will ever look at you if you keep dreaming like this?"

Kara smiled, turning at last from her stargazing. "Any boy who doesn't want me just the way I am doesn't deserve me," she stated firmly, still grinning. She fiddled with the ends of her white-blonde hair.

"Look, Kara, you know you're never going to get off Krypton. The chances were slim before, and now with this war, odds are next to nothing," Thara reasoned patiently. It was a common disagreement between them, the one dark spot in an otherwise perfect life-long friendship. "Why don't you just give up this dream of being an astronaut? Become something normal. Alura is an botanist. Or you could become a historian like your aunt Lara. That's very respectable."

Kara sighed. "Thara, we've done this a thousand times! Firstly, I _never_ give up on _anything_. Secondly, while my aunt and my mother are both wonderful women, whom I admire very much, they're always outshone by my father and Jor-El. People hardly ever remember Lara and Alura, because nobody can see past their brilliant husbands. I want to be respected in my own right. And... don't you ever wonder what's _out_ there? So many worlds, there could be so much out there, so many people we could learn so much from. The Council says Krypton is perfect just the way it is, but... somehow I don't think so. Sure, we've got everything we could possibly need, but Jor-El says it can't be good for a society to remain so much the same for as long as we have."

"Jor-El says a lot," Thara said. "Most of it's pointless bantering no one else can understand. And you sound just like him. All this talk of 'what's out there'. We _know_ what's out there. We used to be out there, finding out. And look what came of that. The weapons that destroyed our lunar colonies." Thara shuddered. The loss of the colonies two years past, was still a raw wound in the Kryptonian psyche.

"Yes," Kara sighed. "There is that."

They were silent for awhile, and Kara longed to heal the tension hanging in the air. She didn't know how. After several minutes of awkward silence between them, Thara stood up and announced formally that she was going back to Kandor.

That was the last time the two friends would see each other.

--

_Argo City, three weeks later..._

Jor-El sighed, turning away from the window overlooking the garden where Kara sat, staring at her hands. He ran a hand through his snow-white hair. "Kara has not been the same since Kandor was taken," his brother Zor-El said quietly. "She saw it, you know. She was on her way to visit her friend, Thara. She had nearly reached the city when..." Zor-El trailed off.

The loss of Kandor had ended the violent civil war that had engulfed the planet for the last three years. Jax-Ur, the maniacal rebel leader, had disappeared when the city was destroyed. But the city's disappearance had destroyed Krypton's moral as nothing else had. Everyone across the planet had had relatives in the capital city, or friends, and for days afterward the whole world had been like the waking dead, stumbling about in a daze.

"When the Coluan attacked," Jor-El finished.

Zor-El nodded. "Rao," he muttered, crossing his arms behind his back and beginning to pace, a common habit of his. "We need to find out what happened to them."

"General Zod said--" Jor-El began, but his raven-haired brother interrupted him.

"To hell with what Dru-Zod says! I know he served well in preventing terrible loss of life in Jax-Ur's bloody war, but I don't trust him. Zod likes power rather too much for me to feel entirely easy in his testimony. He was the only one to speak with Brainiac when he attacked Kandor. I know he said that the city was utterly destroyed, but..." Zor-El glanced around once before continuing. He leaned in to his brother. "But Kara was there. She saw what happened, and she was closer than anyone aside from Zod. She says the city wasn't destroyed but... shrunk. A tiny city in a bottle, taken into the Coluan's ship."

Jor-El glanced sharply at his brother. "That is very grave indeed. If Zod has been lying to us..." But then he sighed, his handsome features distressed. "If Zod has been lying to us, it will not matter unless we solve the greater problems at hand."

"Brother, you talk in riddles," Zor-El said. "Explain yourself." Jor-El gestured silently for his younger brother to follow him. They walked in silence through the halls of Zor-El's housing complex.

As they reached the younger man's private laboratory, Jor-El finally spoke. "I took the liberty of bringing a sample with me. I've uncovered something that may prove... catastrophic."

"Sample? Sample of what?" Zor-El asked, his curiosity piqued and a knot of unnamed dread beginning in his stomach. His brother, simultaneously focused and absentminded though he was, tended more toward joviality. He had never seen Jor-El look so serious. Jor-El did not answer.

They entered the lab, and Jor-El strode immediately to a pair of spinning containment rings in the middle of the room. He pulled on a metallic glove, reached between their whirling bars, and extracted a small vial.

He turned around and Zor-El felt a thrill of inexplicable fear as he stared at the tiny glass tube. The contents made him feel ever so slightly ill, though he couldn't explain why. He stared at the viscous, emerald-green liquid, obviously white-hot, in some trepidation. "What is that?" he asked softly.

Jor-El shook his head. "When Brainiac attacked our world, he did something to our sun, Rao. I don't know exactly what, but the star is emitting a strange kind of radiation. This... and Zor-El, you understand this level of physical science as well as I do, and you know what I'm about to tell you shouldn't be possible, but... it's happening. The radiation is affecting Krypton's core and mantle in... disturbing ways. The chemical structure of the metals within our planet is changing. Becoming various isotopes of the same element. This liquid," he said.

Zor-El stared in fascinated horror at the tiny amount of matter that, he now realized, had to be lava. "More than that," Jor-El continued, "The chemical reactions this has caused are creating intense pressure within Krypton's core. Unless we can find a way to alleviate the pressure- and soon- Krypton will explode."

Suddenly, a soft feminine voice came from behind them; neither of them had noticed when Zor-El's wife, Alura, had entered the lab. "How long?" she asked quietly. The two sons of Yar-El looked at each other.

"Three days," Jor-El finally admitted. Zor-El gasped softly. Alura sighed.

"There's no hope, is there," she said. It was not phrased as a question.

"No," Jor-El sighed. "I know what I am capable of, and I know what Zor-El can do, and even working together, even with all the best scientific minds of Krypton working together, we'd never find a solution in time."

Zor-El's eyes hardened, and he smiled grimly. "No," he said. "No, but that does not mean there is no hope. I have an idea..."

--

_Jor-El and Lara's mansion, two days later..._

"Mother, Father, I don't want to go!" Kara protested. Zor-El smiled sadly at her, and Alura wept softly into her husband's shoulder. The earth beneath their feet shook ever so slightly at regular intervals. To most of Krypton, the sensations meant little. To the last members of the House of El clustered around two small starships, they signalled the end of days.

Lara Lor-Van stepped forward to place her hands on her neice's shoulders. Her amber curls framed a beautiful face and bright green eyes. "Kara, there is no other choice. We cannot let Krypton go unmourned and unremembered in the eyes of the rest of the universe. Before you were born, before the Council outlawed space flight, Jor-El started work on rockets for interstellar travel. Only _started_, you understand. The ships will function, but they're too rudimentary to support a Kryptonian adult. _You_, you and Kal-El, will be Krypton's last legacy.

"We're sending you to a planet called Earth. It is peopled with a race that looks much like Kryptonians, and their customs are similar to ours. But their planet orbits a _yellow_ star. No one really knows what effect the radiation will have on you, but I have it on very good authority--" Lara threw a loving glance at her husband. "-- that it may give you and Kal-El... powers. Great powers, beyond those of mortal men.

"It will be a great responsibility, Kara, but your parents, Jor-El and I agree that you are ready for it. Please take care of Kal-El for us. I beg you. Krypton lives through you, Kara. We will all live on through your memories." Lara's emerald eyes glimmered with unshed tears as the teenager threw her arms around her.

"Oh Lara, how will I ever survive?" she whispered.

Lara smiled through her tears. "If I know you, Kara, you will survive. The blood of the House of El runs in your veins. You will be strong. You will make this journey, and you will survive. Jor-El and I have sent crystals to guide you in your new home."

Zor-El and Alura approached the pair, and embraced their daughter. "Deep space is probably cold," Alura said, wrapping a red and blue blanket, emblazoned with the ancient symbol of the House of El around her daughter's shoulders.

"Goodbye Father, Mother," Kara said softly. "Goodbye Aunt Lara. Goodbye Jor-El." Squaring her shoulders, she turned and settled herself into the larger, purple ship. "I won't fail," she said. The hatch of the ship sealed with a pneumatic hiss.

Jor-El and Lara bent over the second ship, checking everything one last time and placing the message crystals they had prepared inside. "Goodbye Kal-El," Lara whispered to her tiny son, swathed in a blanket similar to the one Kara had taken with her into the ship. Kal-El opened his eyes, and Jor-El marveled at how much they resembled Kara's... and his own. The baby's tuft of dark hair stirred as they sealed hatch of the second ship.

Zor-El crossed to the crystalline control panel across the launch pad and inserted a few crystals into the appropriate slots to confirm the launch of the two ships. With a quiet roar, the two rockets shot simultaneously off into the unknown, Kara's trailing just slightly behind Kal-El's smaller ship.

At the same moment, a terrible rumbling came from deep beneath the ground. "Oh Rao!" Alura whispered.

"So comes the end of all things," Zor-El said quietly. He took his wife's hand. Jor-El imitated the motion, then reached across the group to take his brother's other hand.

"If we must meet death, let us face her together," he said. On this cue, Lara took her sister-in-law's hand. Alura smiled sadly at her. And then the foursome closed their eyes. With a deafening roar, Krypton exploded in a shower of green fire.

Far away, two little ships shot away in a faster-than-light vortex. Within them were contained Kal-El and Kara of Krypton, the Last Son and Last Daughter of Krypton. The two ships bravely continued on their long journey through the eternal darkness of deep space to a faraway planet that circled a small yellow sun.

--

**Well, that's all for now. As you can see, this is going to feature Supergirl prominently- at least, once she finally comes out of suspended animation, hopefully sometime within the next ten chapters...**

**Next: Kal-El arrives on Earth, and Kara experiences some difficulty.**


	2. Twenty Years

**A Note From Lara: Alright, here's the second installment of _Last Daughter, Last Son_, and much sooner than I expected to have it up. Enjoy!**

--

_Space, minutes before the destruction of Krypton..._

Kara peered out the tiny port window in her craft. If she strained her eyes, she could still catch a glimpse of Krypton, a tiny globe of white, tinged with orange by the baleful light of crimson Rao.

Finally- finally!- she was living her dream. Kara Zor-El had escaped the fetters of the Council's regulations and was making her way into the void. She smiled, but there was a bittersweet edge to it. This was no temporary jaunt across the stars. She was leaving, sure, but she could never go back. Krypton was lost to her now.

She continued to watch the tiny orb as she traveled farther and farther away, until, with a flare of green, Krypton exploded. Kara bit back a strangled cry.

For a few moments, she stared stunned at the green miasma that had taken the place of her beloved home. Then, silent tears began to stream down her face as she mourned for her whole world.

Part of her felt that she should be more obvious in her grief. She felt that she should make some demonstration of mourning, that she should wail and scream for the loss of her whole planet, as its soul mourner.

But then she remembered what her mother had said after the abduction of Kandor, when Kara had asked her why she did not cry. Alura had smiled sadly at her daughter and answered, "Kandor was symbol of Krypton, and with it's loss, sometimes it feels like Krypton's heart has been ripped right out. But it hasn't. As long as there is still one person who remembers Kandor, she still lives on in our hearts. Kandor isn't truly gone, Kara, as long as we remember." It was the same thing, Kara decided. Her home might be gone physically, but she still lived on, the Last Daughter of Krypton, and she would bear the memory of her world into a new one. And so she mourned in silence.

--

Far away, in the new-made grave of Krypton, the magma that had formed the mantle of the planet solidified rapidly in the freezing vacuum of space. As it cooled, the bizarre radiation Jor-El had detected in Rao's corona began to saturate the meteors. Gradually, as the rocks fled away from the crimson light of the star, they began to glow in a variety of colors, a sickly emerald green being most prominent.

The force of the explosion which had descimated Krypton hurled the shining fragments far and fast through the void. A large group of meteors shot in the direction that Kal and Kara's ships had taken, quickly overtaking them...

--

Kara continued to watch out the winddow, but now she was watching Kal's ship. It had been launched before hers, and would shift into hyperspeed shortly before hers as well. She would appreciate a bit of time to brace herself before the jolt she expected.

She saw Kal's ship disappear suddenly, in a shot of light and a faint warping of the fabric of the universe. She closed her eyes to prepare for the shock.

All at once, she felt her ship jerk, and something about it felt wrong. Opening her eyes, she saw that one of the crystals in the control array before her was glowing a warning amber. Removing the crystal, she listened as Jor-El's voice explained that an unknown object had struck the craft on the rear thruster. As Kara glanced out the window, she saw several green-glowing meteors whiz past her, and felt a thrill of fear in her gut.

Quickly, she returned to the control panels, grasping the tip of one of the maintenance crystals. As the translucent shard warmed under her touch, a holographic image appeared in the air before her. Examining the diagram, which showed a diagnostic image of her ship, she quickly realized that the thruster was only functioning at half capacity.

After examining several other holograms, she determined that she was still on course for Earth, but it would take her significantly longer to reach her destination. Without any kind of tool to make calculations, Kara was unsure exactly how long it would take, but she wasn't willing to find out. With a sinking heart, she realized that she might be unable to fulfill her final promise to Lara and Jor-El: she might not reach Earth to raise Kal-El as he should be- as a true Kryptonian. And who knew how long it would take her to arrive at all? Well, she wasn't willing to simply wait it out, she was too impatient for that. Suddenly, an idea occurred to her, and she immediately set about executing it.

Kara had spent many hours with her father and uncle in their laboratories, watching as they tinkered with various kinds of equipment, and she was able to find her way around the ship's controls fairly easily. Within moments, she had set the crystal array to the appropriate patterns, and had only to insert one more crystal to complete the action. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. And then she inserted the crystal.

The compartment in the interior of the ship iced over as the built-in cryogenics began to operate. The air supply to the chamber was cut off shortly after. Kara felt her heart slow, then stutter to a halt, and knew no more. Her last thought was that she hoped Earth's sun was very warm. Only a significant amount of heat would warm the chamber enough to restart her heart.

She would drift in such a state of suspended animation for thirty years...

--

_Earth, one year after Krypton's destruction..._

At 10:30 a.m. on April 28, 1992, the town of Smallville Kansas was quiet. It was a Sunday, and most of the town's inhabitants were still attending their various churches. Jonathan and Martha Kent, however, had left the service early. Martha had felt ill, and begged Jonathan to leave after the pastor's sermon.

At 10:30 a.m. on April 28, 1992, Earth's upper atmosphere was not so quiet. Three objects of various sizes streaked together through the layers of air surrounding the planet. The largest headed straight as an arrow for Smallville. The one of middle size fell toward a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. The smallest crashed down, landing outside the city of Gotham.

Jonathan Kent was a tall, strong man of about 40, with warm brown eyes and a full complement of shaggy blond hair. His wife, by contrast, had bright green eyes, and dark hair streaked with gray at the temples. She was unable to have children, a fact that had cast a dark pall over their otherwise perfect marriage.

As the Kents were driving back to their secluded farm, Martha spotted a bright object fall through the sky. "Jonathan, _look_!" she cried. "What's that?" The object, burning like a small star in and of itself, crashed in the cornfield to the left of the road.

Jonathan pulled off the road, and the pair of them hurried across the field to where a small ship lay in the center of the field. "What... what is it, Martha?" he asked softly. His wife didn't speak as she approached the ship. "Careful Martha!" he called, but it was too late.

She laid her hand on the metallic surface, and immediately jerked it back- the ship was still burning hot from it's entry into the atmosphere. But at her touch, something within the craft clicked, and the hatch door opened smoothly. Martha gasped. "Holy--!" Jonathan murmured.

A dark-haired baby, perhaps a year or so old, gazed up at them with intelligent blue eyes. "Jonathan..." Martha whispered, never taking her eyes off the baby. Ever so gently, she reached into the ship and lifted the child into her arms. He grinned and clapped his hands as he was removed from his vessel. "Jonathan, we have to keep him."

"Martha, we... we _can't_," Jonathan protested. "I mean, he's not... clearly he's not from... around here." He gestured to the sky. "And how would we explain him to the neighbors?" Martha looked up at him with shining eyes, and held the baby out to here husband.

As he took the child in his arms, Jonathan's face changed completely. He'd secretly always wanted a son, and as the baby stared into his eyes, grinning as only a young child can, he couldn't help but smile back down at him. "_Fine_," he muttered gruffly, though Martha could tell he was very pleased, "We'll keep the kid. God knows how we'll explain him away, though."

They took the child home, naming him Clark and claiming that he was the illegitimate son of Martha's niece, three times removed. Twenty years later, he left Smallville, off to see the world...

--

Shortly thereafter, a fragment of glowing green meteor slammed through the grate covering a storm drain in Gotham City. The rock struck the concrete lining the walls of the city's sewer system, and a shockwave of green reverberated out from the place of impact. The shockwave, nearly invisible, spread through the city's lower quarter, twisting and changing the minds of everyone it passed by.

One young man in particular, a petty thief by trade, was affected by the aftershock of the impact. He began cleaning his handgun, humming to himself. He'd suddenly had the _best_ idea! He'd mug a billionaire tonight! Wouldn't that be a story to tell his buddies, huh?

_9 hours later..._

Thomas and Martha Wayne shepherded their four year old son out of the opera. Thomas was impatient- his son was such a coward. The suspense of _The Pearl Fishers_ had been too much for the boy. He truly loved his son, but every so often, he just wished Bruce had a little more courage.

Suddenly, a dark figure lurched from the shadows. "Hey, you!" he shouted. "Gimme the pearls!" Brandishing a gun, he reached his hand forward to snatch the necklace Martha handed him with shaking hands. His own hands were quivering; as good of an idea as this had seemed at the time, he was terrified.

"Just take it easy," Thomas said.

"Now, your watch and wallet!" he yelled. Thomas Wayne reached into his pocket to retrieve the demanded wallet, but the thief panicked, thinking he was going for some hidden weapon. The gun fired once... twice... and Mr. and Mrs. Wayne lay dying, their lifeblood leeching out, as the mugger fled and their small son sobbed hysterically.

"Bruce..." Thomas whispered, coughing on his own blood. "Bruce, remember... to be kind... always be the man we raised you to be... goodbye...." Bruce Wayne knelt on the rain-soaked pavement, screaming, as his parents drifted away from him. He could only stare, horrified, at their bleeding bodies, even as the police arrived and lead him away from the scene.

Over the next twenty years, Gotham sank deep into crime, a result of the mysterious effect of the green meteor that lay deep within the sewers. And Bruce Wayne nursed his anger, transformed it from a burning desire for revenge into a fighting spirit and a determination that could not be curbed. And, in twenty years, he found a teacher, someone who could train him in the art of combat...

--

The second shard of kryptonite came arching down through the sky, toward an island several miles off the coast of Greece. Two miles into the air above the island, the crystalline meteor appeared to change course, as if it had struck an invisible barrier. It slid along the transparent wall, until it fell into the sea. On high in Olympus, a goddess was watching.

Pallas Athena had been waiting for this moment for the last three thousand years. The Child of the Stars had arrived. With a wave of her hand, she contacted her sisters and brothers, gods and goddesses all. The Twins Artemis and Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite, and Demeter assembled in an instant. As one, the six Olympians vaulted off the peak of their sacred mountain and descended to Themyscira.

On the mystic isle, the queen of the Amazons, was alone in her chamber. She started as the deities appeared before her, and immediately knelt in respect.

"Rise Hippolyta," Athena commanded, gray eyes smiling. "It is time. Have you the clay?" The queen nodded, doing as her goddess commanded. She turned to a small alcove and brought forth a lump of clay, shaped perfectly into the form of an infant girl. She laid the statue on the marble floor before her, and retreated a respectful distance from the gods.

Aphrodite, as the most senior among the gathering, was the first to bestow her blessing. Silently, haughtily, she placed her hand on the infant's head, and the room was filled with soft golden light. The child's features were reformed, and Hippolyta could see, even then, that her child would be very beautiful. She nodded in thanks to the goddess.

One by one, the assembled deities bestowed their blessings. Great strength, speed, flight, intelligence... the list went on and on. After each god or goddess gave their blessing, they nodded to Hippolyta and disappeared back to Olympus.

Finally, only Athena was left. She stepped forward to Hippolyta. "Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons, this is a great favor we do for you today. You have lived many long years, and in all that time, you have prayed greatly for a daughter of your own. We have granted you this favor, but in return, we ask something of you. This child shall be the greatest of all your sisterhood, capable of feats not one of the Amazons shall ever match. In only a few short years, three shall rise, and they will shape the whole world. If the girl is not one of them, if she is not Themyscira's ambassador to man's world, much shall be lost. When the time comes for her to leave your island, you must let her go."

Hippolyta nodded. "I understand," she said.

Athena smiled. Hippolyta had always been one of her favorites. "And, for you to put away against the time that day will come, I have some things to give to you before I bestow my blessing." She held up a pair of silver bracelets, modeled after the gold ones all Amazons wore. "These were made of Zeus's aegis. I think you will find that they'll be useful to the girl. And this lasso, imbued with the Fires of Hestia, will compel any within its circle to be truthful."

Hippolyta nodded again. "A thousand times, I thank you, Pallas Athena." The goddess nodded, then reached her hand over the child, closing her eyes.

"Diana of the Amazons, with this blessing, I give you the gift of wisdom and bring you to life," she intoned. The baby opened her bright blue eyes, which smiled up into the gray eyes of the goddess. Athena's mouth quirked up. "I think I shall like you, child," she said.

Diana was trained as a warrior, as was the custom with all of her sisterhood, and she lived in peace on Themyscira for the first twenty years of her life...

--

**I know what you're thinking: You're thinking, "this is a fic about Superman and Supergirl. Why are Batman and Wonder Woman in here?" Well, all I can say is, all will be revealed in good time... (like, many many many chapters from now)**

**Next time: Clark Kent grows up in Smallville.**


End file.
